You Never Forget Your First
by SCWLC
Summary: Tommy had some adventures as a warrior of darkness that we don't know about.


Title: You Never Forget Your First

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: Whoever owns the Power Rangers these days isn't me.

Rating: T/PG-13

Summary: Tommy had some adventures as a warrior of darkness that we don't know about.

Notes: This is just a kind of a cracky notion I had, especially since there seems to be one hive of scum and villainy that all the bad guys hang out at and sell Quasar Swords in. And then I started imagining Rita Repulsa standing in for Tommy's mom and . . . well . . . yeah.

* * *

1993 - Onyx: A Bar

Goldar was pissed. That was all there was to it. The Empress had chosen a new lead warrior to replace him. And who was this warrior? Not a member of one of the great warrior races, not someone from a family steeped in evil, not a powerful sorcerer or great master of the arts of war. No, she'd picked a human.

Not just any human either. Some pitiful adolescent human, not fully grown, not fully trained, as green as the armour he wore when he morphed into his form as the Evil Green Ranger. It was enough to make a true soldier of darkness scream in frustration. That desire to avoid screaming was the reason he'd come here, bringing the brat with him. Under the pretext of a friendly camaraderie, he figured the kid wouldn't have had the kinds of liquor available in a place like the bars on Onyx. He'd get the kid drunk, let him get into trouble, then let Rita take her fury over having to bail her new "warrior" out of trouble, out on the child.

Tommy (he snorted internally, who could possibly tremble in fear of the Dark Warrior Tommy?) was looking around the bar, wary but interested, and Goldar collected the first round of drinks, setting them in front of them. That was when he saw Ecliptor come in, accompanied by a human girl the same age as the Green Ranger.

Ecliptor. Now there was a great warrior for the forces of evil, and after a moment's consideration, he abandoned the kid at the table with his drink and went to chat with someone who understood the complexities of their calling.

Tommy looked up and sighed. This was both stupid and boring. While it was nice that Goldar was inviting him along, it wasn't as though anything was happening in the bar, and the Wild West atmosphere only went so far before it lost its charm in the face of the dirt and mild stink coming from the back. Now Goldar was off talking to some evil warrior type, and he was stuck here with nothing to do but drink something that tasted nasty and left Tommy with the distinct sensation that he shouldn't have too much at once lest he become totally drunk off his butt.

"Hi," came a voice from behind him. "I don't think I've seen you before."

It was a teenaged girl his age. And she was _hot_. Black leather and long, violet dyed hair, holding a staff as though she knew how to use it. That was a down side of the Green Ranger thing. He liked staffs. Sure the Dragon Dagger was cool, but staffs were cooler. "You probably wouldn't have," he agreed. "I was just recruited by Rita Repulsa. Green Ranger," he held out a hand, which she took, and then on an impulse, kissed the back of her hand the way he'd seen guys do in some old movies.

"Ranger? As in a Power Ranger?" she asked. "I thought those only worked on the side of good."

He shrugged. "Well, the ones back home do, mostly. But I prefer this side." Then he looked over at Goldar, who seemed to be the person most amused by some joke he was telling. "Well, most of the time," he said with a sigh.

She looked over as well. "Minion?" she asked.

"Don't tell him that," Tommy snorted. "He thinks he's the Greatest Warrior For Darkness or something. I don't know. The way he's failed to do anything to that Red Ranger back home except get his ass kicked, I don't know how he justifies it to himself." He turned to her. "So, I'm Evil Green Ranger Tom," he barely kept himself from adding the, 'm-y' to the end, "Oliver. And you would be?"

"Astronema," she said, taking a seat, picking up Goldar's drink, sniffing it and then putting it down with a face of disgust. "Princess of Darkness. Ecliptor is my guardian on behalf of Dark Specter."

He'd heard a few of those names noised around by Finster. They were really high up the evil food chain, maybe even higher than Rita. "Wow," he said. "Should I even be breathing the same air as you?"

"It's nice to come here and get out of the Dark Fortress," she said. "I mean, sure it stinks, but seeing the same walls all the time and the same people," she shook her head. "Deadly dull. Still, the food and drinks in here leave something to be desired."

"Is there anywhere better around here?" he asked. "I mean, Goldar's my ride back, so I can't exactly get too far away from him, but-"

She grinned. "I know a great place."

Not much later they were ensconced in a much higher class of establishment. It was clean and smelled nice, though not as nice as the squirming Astronema, who'd let him nickname her Astra. Tommy was vaguely aware he was now thoroughly drunk, but Astra seemed pretty tipsy too, and they staggered up the stairs to a room she rented and they proceeded to get very naked and do very exciting naked things.

Tommy woke with a stunning headache, being dragged out of bed by a very irate Rita Repulsa. "I'm going to kill that Goldar!" she shouted. "What was he thinking!?" She glared at him. "Get dressed this minute, young man, and we're going to have a talk about drinking and what not to do with girls you meet while you're drunk."

Hastily putting on his clothes, he became aware that the creature identified as Ecliptor was lecturing Astra in a similar way on the other side of the room. "My apologies, Ecliptor," Rita was saying. "I had no notion that Goldar had taken my new Evil Ranger off. That monkey had better have a good excuse for this."

The great thing about Ranger powers was that they healed all sorts of injuries, and that included the after-effects of a night of drinking. Tommy had already mostly recovered his equilibrium, and dove and rolled under Ecliptor's irritated swing of an arm to hiss into Astra's ear the communication frequencies and connections at Rita's mood palace. "Call me," he said, grinning cheekily at her before showing off by using Ecliptor as a springboard to vault out the window, tucking and rolling on the street and waving as he set off for what was so obviously Rita's ship to head home.

* * *

Astronema was both appalled and attracted to the bold Green Ranger who had just been so disrespectful to her guardian. He was cute and had been so much fun the night before. The best part was, that whole virgin purity thing had been taken care of with someone she liked instead of some hideous-but-worthy monster from the ranks of evildoers. "I take it you like the youth," Ecliptor said dryly.

She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "He's cute," she admitted. "And you just saw him dodge you. He seems an excellent warrior."

The approval in his eyes warmed her. "Which is why I shall not discourage you if you decide to pursue him," he told her.

Indeed, she got lucky when she called, catching him just upon returning from terrorising the Power Rangers on his home planet of Earth, and they met up for a wonderful date. They sparred, he complimented her on her staff, muttering irritably about how he had to figure out how to get one to go with his powers. It was so adorable. And he showed her around the town the Power Rangers lived, amusing them both by saying cruel things to the Pink one, which was just so funny.

"You know," she said, "You're really wasted working for Rita. Maybe in a while you could come and join us. Be my dark consort?"

He frowned. "It's tempting," he admitted. "I just hate leaving things undone, you know? When we've dealt with the Power Rangers here, I think."

Then suddenly the whirlwind romance was over. Astronema received a call from Tom, her Green Ranger looking furtive. "Astra?" he said as soon as the communications were connected.

"Tom? Is something wrong?" she asked anxiously.

He let out a breath. "It sort of is," he admitted. "Rita . . . I wasn't raised to evil the way you were," he said. "I . . . Rita had me under a spell."

Astronema froze. Then suddenly her temper started to boil. "You'd better not be calling to tell me you've switched sides, Tom."

"I can't lie to you," he said looking miserable. "Jason broke the spell, Astra. I'm not . . . the things I did . . ." his voice cracked and Astronema felt bad for him, but not enough to stop being angry.

"You're breaking up with me!?" she was furious. "How could you do that? You're supposed to be my consort! I don't want some snivelling minion with bad breath and a monkey face, dammit! You're it!"

"Astra, I can't do it," he protested. "I'm a Power Ranger now-"

Furious, she blasted the communication module with her staff. How dare he? How dare he do this to her? Stupid jerk.

And that was how Astronema truly came to hate Power Rangers.

* * *

Angel Grove, 2000

For a good two years Tommy had avoided being caught in the same space as Andros' sister. At Ranger reunions, because they all did love to get together and have a party where you could get drunk and not worry that the person you confessed some sordid secret to wouldn't understand what, "My ex was such a yellow/red/blue/green/pink/black," actually meant. It meant you could tell all the really good stories and not edit for content that accidentally revealed your ranger history. It meant people could start sparring at random and no one thought it was weird, the arguments about who had a better uniform and who'd had the crappiest breakups due to running off in the middle of dates and not coming back because you were too bruised to go back, they were all totally normal.

When Jason, Trini and Zack had left, he and the others had worried about the conference breaking up their friendships, but being a ranger meant a lot of things, like that you were now part of a large and very dysfunctional family.

Karone had been invited as an honorary ranger from the moment she'd arrived on Earth as herself and not Astronema. She was, after all, part of the world that spawned the Rangers and her brother was the Red Astro Ranger while her boyfriend was the Silver Astro Ranger. Simply put, she fit in perfectly with the other crazies that made up Earth's Ranger family.

But that just meant Tommy went to a lot of trouble to avoid those meetings if there was even a whisper about the Space Rangers being there.

It was getting him a bit of a reputation, partly because so many people were comparing him to Andros. He'd been the one to get Lightspeed Rescue off the ground, providing them with the necessary information to make the connection to the Morphing Grid, the schematics of the original zords for their techs to adapt and having been in on the process of selecting people to carry the new five morphers.

Having heard about the Titanium Ranger mess, he'd snorted and told Mitchell that it was stupid to have expected Carter to handle the Titanium Powers. Carter was too Red to be Sixth, and in any event it was too early for Carter to have handed anything off to anyone else, anyhow.

The point was, even when he was no longer an officially active ranger, Tommy simply felt pulled to the Power and couldn't leave it any more than Andros could. They were in for life. Adam was another, although Tommy privately wondered how the second Black Ranger managed to keep that part of himself so well locked up.

In any event, the two new sets of kids on the block, Lightspeed and Lost Galaxy were both in town and Tommy was under orders from Jason to show up on pain of being ambushed and dragged in by everyone who'd worn the original uniform.

So, he showed up, doing his damndest to avoid being anywhere near Karone.

He had his back to the door as he chatted with his old teammates, everyone avoiding a pink elephant of a letter for the sake of not ruining the party for everyone else. That was when a lull in the chatter happened in time for Karone, who'd somehow come right up behind Tommy, to say, "It's nothing personal, really. It's just . . . green rangers. It's not a pleasant memory for me. It's kind of why I hated rangers, actually."

"Oh?" asked Carlos. "Why green in particular?"

He could picture the careless shrug in his mind's eye. "Well, it was years ago, you know. I was just fourteen when I met this great guy. He was evil, I was evil, it really seemed like a perfect match and all. Handsome, great fighter, he complimented my staff work. I'd even proposed that he become my Dark Consort once he'd finished up what he was busy with at the time. It was a great three weeks, and then suddenly I get this call from him." Tommy knew he should be getting out of there. But he was frozen.

His friends, his teammates, they were looking at him, concerned over his apparent distress. Well, Adam, Aisha, Tanya and Justin were looking concerned. Trini, Jason, Zack, Kim, Billy, Kat and weirdly enough, Rocky, were all staring at him with vaguely appalled looks on their faces.

"He's switched sides. He's good now and breaking up with me because it was all a spell." Choking sounds began to emerge from the former rangers in front of him.

Tommy tried to edge away and Jason caught one arm in a grip like steel, while Adam, having caught up, got the other. "Let me go," he muttered.

"This is why you've been avoiding these things?" Jason asked.

Karone was still talking. "I mean, I'm really in love with him and everything, and then, bang. Just because the Red Earth Ranger's broken a spell he has the gall to tell me it won't work out."

Tommy wrenched himself free, just in time to stumble into Karone. Andros, who Tommy had avoided just as studiously as his sister, smiled at him. "Tommy Oliver, isn't it?" he said pleasantly. "I'd been wondering whether we'd ever get to meet."

"Tommy?" Karone's voice was low and rather threatening.

Weakly, because this was not going to end well for him, Tommy said, "Hey, Astra."

"I should kick your ass, you bastard."

He winced. "Look. It really _wouldn't_ have worked out-"

"You were my first, you know that?" she demanded.

At that, Tommy glared back. "Excuse me? You were the one who was all, 'I want to get on with losing any vestiges of purity to perfect my evil.'"

Andros choked on his drink and the entire room became deadly silent. "So, what? My offer of consort meant nothing to you?"

"Of course it meant something!" Tommy snapped. "But I wasn't evil anymore! What was I supposed to do? Keep dating you while you were conquering star systems? How would that have worked anyhow?"

She snorted. "What? You think I couldn't have gotten you a shuttle? It's not like you couldn't have dropped by whenever. Ecliptor liked you, you know. You would have been totally welcome at the Fortress any time!"

"When I would have been morally obligated to stop you with whatever you were doing?" he demanded. Then he sighed. "I did like Ecliptor," he admitted. "Stand up guy for a Dark Warrior. Way less annoying than Goldar."

"Wow," Zack said. "You think you know a guy."

"Shut up, Zack," Tommy said.

Trini spoke up. "No, seriously. Were you dating a villainess while you were working with us?" She shook her head. "I mean, was _that_ why you didn't ask Kim out?"

"Well, I wasn't going to cheat on my girlfriend," Tom told her, appalled. "What do you take me for?"

Kai looked weirded out. "But . . . you were dating the Princess of Darkness _while_ you were working with the Power Rangers?"

There was nothing for it. "Yeah," he admitted. "I mean," he turned to Zhane, "You're really lucky, she was a great girl and she's an incredible woman."

Karone's temper seemed to ease. "You mean . . . how long had you been good before you called?" she asked.

"A month," Tom admitted. "It was tough hacking into Rita's base to teleport out to meet you, you know."

Billy squawked. "What? You were . . . is that where all those power drains were coming from?"

"Um . . . yeah. Probably," Tommy admitted. Billy began to mutter about innumerable diagnostics and jerks who created ghosts in the system.

Andros suddenly caught up with the whole conversation. "You slept with my sister."

Sighing, Tommy said, "This is why I've been avoiding you." He shot an apologetic smile at the Space Rangers. "It's a little awkward, you know?"

"You slept with my sister."

"Andros?"

The match that followed, which couldn't really be called sparring, because Andros wanted Tommy dead for taking his darling sister's virtue, took a long time because their fighting styles were so different and evenly matched that neither won the upper hand. They came to a truce over an agreement that Zhane was too obnoxious not to be left dangling from the roof suffering from an atomic wedgie.


End file.
